Director Hideo Kojima's trailers for the Metal Gear Solid series have always contained surprises. Back when Metal Gear Solid 2 was first shown, audiences at the Tokyo Game Show were fascinated at the high-quality graphics rendered in real-time on the PlayStation 2, with some visitors mistaking that it was a pre-rendered movie. Metal Gear Solid 3's trailer teased gamers by hinting that it would take place during the cold war, making everyone wonder who the main character was. Once again, the trailer for Metal Gear Solid 4 that will be shown during Tokyo Game Show 2005 this weekend will undoubtedly surprise fans of the series.

While it's only a matter of days before Konami shows off its first real trailer of Metal Gear Solid 4 at the Tokyo Game Show, the latest issue of Famitsu disclosed preliminary details on what event attendees will be seeing. As gamers may expect, the trailer will show how Metal Gear Solid 4 will be the most realistic-looking MGS yet, thanks to the PlayStation 3's high-quality graphics.

But the greatest change in Metal Gear Solid 4 may not be on its surface. In what may come as a huge surprise to gamers, screenshots in Famitsu show a character resembling series hero Solid Snake--as an elderly man with gray hair, wrinkles, and a moustache. Though the older man hasn't been confirmed as Solid Snake, he seems to have all the hero's trademarks, including a gray bandana, muscular physique, and the habit of smoking cigarettes. The man wears a mechanical patch on his left eye (making him look similar to Metal Gear Solid 2's Solidus Snake), which seems to be a high-tech scope connected to his new small mech partner, Metal Gear Mark II. Metal Gear Mark II looks identical to the robot that appeared in Konami's classic game Snatcher, one of Kojima's early works. A screenshot from another scene shows a man resembling Otakon, who looks like he's in his thirties or forties.

Other screenshots hint that Metal Gear Solid 4 will take place in a desolated, futuristic city rather than in a jungle like Metal Gear Solid 3. Soldiers, tanks, and two-legged mechs are seen on the roads. Talking to Famitsu, Director Kojima confirmed that Metal Gear Solid 4 will take place in a war zone. The game will feature multiple countries waging external wars and suffering from internal strife. Kojima plans to add realism to the relationships between Snake and the countries to make it more than just a simple character-enemy relationship. For example, if Snake kills a soldier from one country, he may end up allying with its opponent.

Director Kojima says that he hopes to make Metal Gear Solid 4 more "natural" than previous installments in the series. With the hardware shift to PlayStation 3, the developers will be able to give natural motions and facial expressions to the characters--eliminating the need for exclamation points to appear above soldiers' heads when they recognize something.

During E3, Kojima said that he wants to develop elements that aren't "visible by the eye" in Metal Gear Solid 4. He revealed to Famitsu his plans to include "mind games," which will have opponents' concentration depend on their mental condition. For example, soldiers may become weaker if they get intimidated.

For fans of Metal Gear Solid 2's Raiden, Kojima confirms that he will be making a comeback in Metal Gear Solid 4.

GameSpot will have more details on Metal Gear Solid 4 from the Tokyo Game Show floor.

Snake is truely "drowning in time." I just can't accept the fact that this is snake, although there are several things about those pictures which hints toward him being someone else.

For instance, the Snake in Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2 is a clone. Metal Gear Solid 3 was a not exactly a prequel but more/less explained what happened to the original "Snake" or as he is referred to in 1 and 2 "Big Boss." In MGS3, you are able to use a knife along with your close encounters which they refer to as CQC (Close Quarters Combat). The clone you play as in 1 and 2 hasn't used a knife at all, but in these pictures it shows him with one and it even says the initials of CQC in one of the pictures of the magazine. You will also notice that this character also has an eyepatch which is on the same side as Solidus Snake from the second game not from Metal Gear Solid 3. Where it didn't show any evidence in either 1 or 2 in which he gets one. It's possible that he obtains it in the 4th game, but I guess we'll just have to find out in the trailers this weekend.

Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima continues his reign as the gaming industry's most respected visionary with a wicked sense of humor. After teasing attendees at this May's Electronic Entertainment Expo with an irreverent, joke-laden trailer for Metal Gear Solid 4 (that offered no gameplay footage or substantive info about the game), he finally unveiled the fourth installment in his legendary stealth-action series at today's Tokyo Game Show.

The nine-minute long promo for the newly-christened Guns of the Patriots opens with a cunning ruse: You're immediately thrust behind a rifle amid a squad of soldiers who are carefully surveying a bombed-out urban wasteland. The sheer visual prowess of the PS3 instantly impresses: Futuristic helicopters hover overhead, realistic clouds of dust and debris sweep across your field of vision, blinding lens flares and high-dynamic range lighting paint the city with stunning shadows...it's all very, very pretty. Just as you're coming to the realization that MGS4 appears to be a full-on first-person shooter, complete with strafing, Kojima pulls one of his trademark wordplay jokes. Several zany acronyms for FPS spray across the screen, climaxing with the question: Is MGS4 an FPS? Suddenly, a silver-haired Solid Snake appears from off-screen and pulls some punishing close-quarters combat moves against the enemy solider whose view you've been sharing. "No way!" erupts across the screen. Guess that clears that up...

Snake proceeds to take cover within a crumbling edifice while large patrols of enemy soldiers, armored personnel carriers, and giant bipedal Metal Gear robots march through the windswept streets. As Snake takes a breather, you can access how he's changed. Snake now sports a silvery mullet, slightly embarrassing moustache, form-fitting new sneaking suit, and a highly futuristic "Solid Eye System" electronic eyepatch. Snake obviously looks a bit worse for the wear, and the trailer doesn't divulge exactly how much time has progressed since the events of MGS2. A mysterious "X years after the events of Big Shell" gives some hint, but the battle-scarred, world-weary Snake here seems to have taken a page from the Sam Fisher "I'm too old for this sh!t" for this latest adventure. Snake's health even seems to be in danger: While hiding out in this building, he's gripped by a nasty coughing fit that he quiets with a sudden ampoule to the neck. After having to hunt wildlife and mend wounds in MGS3, having to constantly give Snake his meds in MGS4 could easily win the "most depressingly realistic minigame yet" prize.

Snake's respite ends when a Metal Gear busts into his hiding place. Well, not so much bust in...this miniature Metal Gear (bearing a striking resemblance to the cute helper 'bot from Kojima's acclaimed Sega CD graphic adventure Snatcher) comically putts around, revealing a direct-feed viewscreen of Snake's nerdy pal Otacon. This remote-controlled robot allows Otacon to aid Snake's quest while keeping him out of harm's way, and he gets Snake back into the fight with a fresh machine gun clip. Otacon quips that his robot runs on the Cell processor, but Snake has no time for tech babble&a war is raging outside.

Suddenly, the trailer cuts to the viewpoint of the larger Metal Gears patrolling the street: It's spotted Snake, so he has to make a run for it. Snake's high-tech new eyepatch comes in handy, allowing him to scan the area, view a large overhead map, and get critical info on targets. Snake and his robot pal make a run for it, leaping and shooting in majestic slow-mo as the stunningly realistic cityscape shatters around him. The spindly, bidpedal Metal Gears leap across the street, causing massive, earthshaking thuds as they land. Bullets fill the air, absurd amounts of debris, smoke, and particles obscure your vision, and intense waves of heat warp your view. War on the PS3 looks like hell, and MGS4's "No place to hide" mantra seems all too true.

Sadly, the action comes to an end quickly, leaving you wanting more. Snake recalls Otacon's explanation of his little robot and asks, "Hey, what is that Cell processor, anyway?" Here, Kojima breaks the fourth wall and goes all meta on us: Otacon breaks out his laptop (complete with Zone of the Enders 2 wallpaper) and shows Snake Sony's rubber-duckies-in-a- bathtub demo, followed by the too-good-to-be-true Killzone PS3 demo from E3. Otacon continues, telling Snake that the Cell processor is "The key to winning the console war." He also promises that MGS4 will be "worth the wait." We're guessing he's right.

He looks like a douche, I hope Kojima can pull it off without overdoing it.

This a sample of the garbage one had to shift through in MGS2. It pisses me off that you liked this Dual. There's fucking HOURS of this. It's like a soap opera.

Colonel : Raiden, there are also reasons behind your selection. Solidus
raised plenty of other child soldiers. Do you know why we chose
you over them?
Raiden : ???
Colonel : It was because you were the only one who refused to acknowledge
the past. All the others remember what they were, and pay for it
daily.
Rose : But you turn your back on everything you don't like. You do
whatever you like, see only the things you like, and for yourself
alone.
Colonel : Yes -- Rose can attest to that.
Rose : You refused to see me for what I was. I lied to you, but I wanted
to be caught. You pretended to be understanding, to be a
gentleman... You never made a conscious attempt to reach out to
me... The only time you did was when I gave you no choice but to
do so...
Raiden : I was just trying not to...
Rose : What? "Trying not to hurt me?" Dear, the one you were trying not
to hurt was yourself! Avoiding the truth under the guise of
"kindness" is all that you did! It occurred to you to do nothing
but look out for yourself. Even if you claim that it was for my
sake, that feeling was nowhere to be seen. In the end, everything
was for your sake... I was never part of the picture.
Colonel : Ha, ha, ha...exactly right. So you see, you're a perfect
representative of the masses we need to protect. This is why we
chose you. You accepted the fiction we've provided, obeyed our
orders and did everything you were told to. The exercise is a
resounding success.

[Emma Emmerich begins to speak.]

Emma : Didn't I tell you that GW was still incomplete? But not anymore,
thanks to you.
Colonel : Your persona, experiences, triumphs and defeats are nothing but
byproducts. The real objective was ensuring that we could
generate and manipulate them. It's taken a lot of time and money,
but it was well worth it considering the results. I think that's
enough talk. It's time for the final exercise. Raiden, take
Solidus down.
Raiden : Think again! I'm through doing what I'm told!
Colonel : Oh really? Aren't you forgetting something?

[Olga begins to speak.]

Olga : If you die, my child dies.
Colonel : The termination of vital signals from your nanomachines means the
death of Olga's child. Not to mention the death of Rose. She's
wired the same way.
Raiden : Rose -- does she actually exist?
Rose : Of course I do, Jack! You have to beLIEve me!
Raiden : Damn...
Colonel : It will be a fight to the death.
Rose : Solidus, at least, wants you dead.
Colonel : We will collect the necessary data from this last fight, then
we'll consider the exercise closed. So, Jack the Ripper! Will
it be Solidus, the Patriots' creation? Or you -- Solidus'
creation? Our beloved monsters -- enjoy yourselves.

^^ It was without a doubt overdramatized and confusing dialog. I was dreading it, but somehow it also had a lot of impact. I guess no matter how screwed a story is, if you tell it well, it still works to some degree.

I don't see how people can't like MGS2s storyline. It's great. I wouldn't say that it's full of twists but there's alot of things that happen which are unexpected. I can't think of another game that does that.
PS Just watched the trailer. I suppose it doesn't look to bad. Lots of action hopefully. It's just that Snake used to look badass, now he just looks kinda bad. It's a shame, because we know we're going to be seing alot of his face *cough* codec scenes *cough*.
PPS Yay, 300th post.

I don't like the mustache, but I'll bet the game will be freaking sweet, and who knows if that's Solid Snake for sure or not, you never can tell with the MGS games. I just hope it has a third person camera viewpoint like MGS3: Subsitence is going to have.

It will Van, it's also going to include an online multiplayer mode just like MGS3: Subsistance. They are just using MGS3: Subsistance as a test in order to try out Metal Gear Online and the new camera mode. They'll use the feedback they receive from the game in order to make it better for 4.

The gameplay is always sweet, and the graphics in the trailer look sick. The old guy is going to be Snake's long lost uncle-in-law, Shart Snake, who was formed from DNA from Big Boss's feces only to later murder Solid Snake and force Otacon to work for him and call him Solid Snake as he always envied his younger nephew. But in actuality, he's really a robot, disguising as Snake's uncle-in-law, disguised as an older Solid Snake. What's amazing is that Otacon's father, who was presumed dead after working on the Manhattan project, actually built this robot trying to regain the love and trust of his son. Unfortunately a clone of Liquid Snake, discovered this and now has a fleet of Super Duper Metal Ray's that shoot big lasers has an army and is now tracking down the Robot-Uncle-Fake Snake. That's who's in the street in the trailer. But it turns out it's not really a street, it's a a lab and Sons of Liberty implanted neurons to make it LOOK like a street. A lab where their using the cells of Liquid Snake's clone to crack the final codes to the human genome in order to create an army of humans to fight for the Sons of Liberty.
I could do this for hours, but I gotta run.

When it debuted at the 2005 Tokyo Game Show a few days ago, the Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer got a similar reception to the Killzone trailer at E3--almost universal awe. But when the initial shock wore off, the same question was raised by skeptics--was it a real-time demonstration of the PlayStation 3's in-game graphical power or a prerendered trailer?

To dispel any doubt, series director Hideo Kojima and artist Yoji Shinkawa held a stage event at Konami's TGS booth to prove that the visuals are indeed running in real time on the next-generation console. "This trailer isn't a CG or something that we've rendered on a high-spec PC," said Kojima "This is the real thing on a PlayStation 3 development kit."

After showing the full eight-minute MGS4 trailer, director Kojima and an assistant began a real-time demonstration on a PS3 development kit featuring scenes from the preview. The first sequence was from early in the trailer, when Snake peeked through the broken walls of a building. There, he paused the game and moved the camera around to show that the real-time rendering was authentic. "He's a bit pigeon-toed because he's being cautious," joked Kojima, while the camera rotated to show Snake's feet, which weren't visible in the original trailer.

To further show off the PS3's capabilities, Kojima zoomed in to a detailed close-up of Snake's costume. Clearly visible was a detailed "Ota-Damacy" (Otacon-Soul) patch on his chest, the logo for which can be seen on MGS4's official Web site. "All the equipment created by Otacon have this mark on them," added Kojima.

Kojima's development team has been concentrating on MGS4's shadow and lighting effects. "We can change the shadows in MGS4 in real time. We can also place shadows on Snake himself, using [the PS3's] self-shadow effects. This is the first time that we've been able to do it in the series. We always wanted to use self-shadowing effects, and it's finally become a reality," said Kojima. "We're using high-dynamic range rendering this time and creating extremely natural visuals as a result," added Kojima's assistant.

Kojima then showed another effect with the PS3 dev kit. As he focused in on the tip of Snake's gun as he held it in front of the screen, Snake and the rest of the background became blurry, as they would if shot by a real camera. "We can give focus to specific things on the screen," said Kojima, and he demonstrated how he can focus in on other objects, like the trailer's landscape and Snake's nose.

Interestingly, Kojima said he doesn't want to give MGS4 a totally realistic look. "With the shift to high definition [resolution], we can give a very realistic look to the game, like an actual movie," he said. "But we purposely added filtering to give it the look that makes it Metal Gear Solid." He then showed how he can change the color balance, glare, and add other effects in real-time through the PS3 dev kit debug menu.

Switching to a scence where Snake is having a conversation with Otacon through the small Metal Gear MK-II robot's LCD screen, Kojima joked about the screen. He then zoomed in to the image on the screen, revealing that Otacon and his room environment on the LCD screen are actually rendered in real time, just like the rest of the trailer. To prove it, Kojima played around with the light source for Otacon's shadow. "We've added a grid on top of it to give it the look of a realistic LCD screen," he said. "Otacon will come out as a full [polygon] model in the game. It's not like we've only created his upper body."

After Kojima finished off his technical demonstration, Kojima explained why he decided to age his characters. "Old characters are better because their wrinkles can be used to show the rendering capabilities of the PS3," he said. "Young characters have silky skin, so it's not as challenging."

Kojima repeated that the concept behind MGS4 is "no place to hide." He also confirmed that the game takes place in the war zone, but he didn't name any specific locale where the game takes place. "MGS4 will take place in a 'situation' rather than a 'location,' and the situation is the war zone," he said, revealing that there will be other locales in the game. "Aside from the war zone that we've just shown [in the trailer], Snake will infiltrate other war zones throughout the world."

Like past installments in the MGS series, MGS4 will have a specific theme it will focus on. "We've gone through 'Gene,' 'Memory,' and 'Scene' as the main themes for the past releases [of MGS]. This time, it's going to be 'Sense.' We're going to try and depict the essence of people, like their heart, mind, and psyche," commented Kojima. He added that his objective with MGS4 on the PS3 is to create things that can't be seen by the naked eye. For example, he said he aims to make soldiers' mental states an element in the war zone.

Series designer Shinkawa revealed that one of the new features in MGS4 will be a modular weapon system. "As you could see in the trailer, MGS4 allows different weapons attachments to be swapped in and out. We made it so players can customize [their weapons]," said Shinkawa. "This is going to be a game for equipment lovers. We've paid special attention to the metals used in the weapons so that they have different textures. They're all metal, but their colors and other elements will slightly vary."

Kojima gave some information on MGS4's enemies as well. The mechs that are seen walking together with soldiers and tanks in the trailer are a new type of Metal Gear called gekkou, which means "moonlight" in Japanese. They're a mixture of mech and creature; the upper half of the body is mechanical, but the legs are organic. "They're extremely fast, but they'll bleed and fall down if Snake shoots their legs--though of course, it's difficult to actually hit them," revealed Kojima. "There's nobody on board that's controlling them, since they move with AI."

Given the shift to the PS3, the soldiers in MGS4 have new characteristics as well. Unlike soldiers from past installments, the soldiers in MGS4 will have individual appearances, including individualized clothing. Kojima referred to them as "Mr. Solider" rather than enemies, since they are neutral toward Snake unless he attacks them. "There are no friendly soldiers or enemy soldiers this time," he said. "It's a war zone, so whether they'll become allies or foes is all up to the player."

So when will MGS4 come out? Not for at least another year, according to Kojima, who said the game will be shown again at the 2006 Tokyo Game Show. "This is our first time, so we focused on presenting the visual aspects of MGS4," he said. "At next year's show, we plan to show more of the game's aspects that can't be seen by the naked eye."